Correct. ASIO is ASIO, whether through foobar2k or winamp. That's it. Foobar doesn't sound better than winamp - it just DOESN'T. That's what the foobar writer is trying to say: the media player does not affect the sound in any way unless its defective.

Codecs follow standards- either they decode the file properly, or they do not. It's the SAME decoding algorithm for MP3 regardless of the program.

Well, no. Different players have different decoders, each with different levels of conformance to standards. Some also go beyond standards to provide higher sound quality, such as the case with MAD, which can decode in 24bit or 32bit and dither down to 16bit, which can increase perceived sound quality. See here.

Although I very much doubt Lilith has any higher sound quality than a properly configured Foobar or Winamp setup, this is because both of those setups would be at the limits of audible quality in terms of MP3 playback.

Correct. ASIO is ASIO, whether through foobar2k or winamp. That's it. Foobar doesn't sound better than winamp - it just DOESN'T. That's what the foobar writer is trying to say: the media player does not affect the sound in any way unless its defective.

Completely true, the only way one could be better than another in SQ is a cack-handed user, but that is not the fault of the player. Heh, maybe not true!

Mind you, what is not in any way subjective is use of plug-ins* and DSPs...I do not know, does using a DSP[I use an EQ & noise sharpening] negate bit-perfection?

*Like searching for stuff via meta-data tags, like iTunes', do not know its name.

Yeah, I mentioned usability and aesthetics and stuff as ways to make a player better, but the original claim was that it sounds better, not necessarily that it's more user-friendly. Also, while Lilith could be using DSP, it's hardly better in terms of sound quality in the conventional sense of the word (i.e. as close as possible to the original file, which in most properly designed media players is 100% with ASIO/KS).

b0dhi: Fair enough, but I was mainly going for the fact that foobar has compliance with playback decoders AFAIK... hell, it also allows for 16-bit dithering as well. I just don't see how Lilith can go above and beyond this in terms of sound quality, and if it somehow can, if that difference is appreciable/audible/etc.

Because I'm bored and curious, I took Sheryl Crow's "Lucky Kid" from ALAC, encoded it with LAME 3.98, then decoded it with madplay and mpg123 (representing two very common decoder libraries). I used audacity to line up the waveforms (zoomed in so I could see individual samples) and compute the difference.

The result? A whopping -89.9dBFS peak. An extra 66dB boost later, I hear mostly noise, but in the background lies a very distorted version of the song.

Attached is a spectral plot over time, in case anyone's interested.

So there is a difference, in raw bits output, between two major decoders. Whether this difference is audible is another question

One thing's for sure - Babel fish is the worst translator I've tried so far and Google Language Tools worked best for me. Anyway this is not the final version with English translation since Unicode is on the way:

Quote:

By the way, I am now developing new version of Lilith.
It based on Unicode programming.
So that it can support for multi-lingual translations.
I will split all strings from programs, and merge into single resource dll file.
It may help to create translations.

I almost forget, this is the author's site -= Project9k =- - since the link posted in the fir post is not valid, that was the only place I could download the player. I used the last version from the test section which comes withe an online updater. With that I manage to update some files to last version as is in 2008.

PS.The Authors of this player is a real nice guy, but he didn't knew that other people from different countries were interested in "Lilith" - that's why there was only a Japanese version. As mentioned above an Unicode version is on the way. And no, I'm not from Japan and English is not my native language, actually I'm from Romania and since I was allowed to translate it, I'm sharing it with others that like/or might like (if they haven't tried it yet) this player.

I unpacked it, then used the updater and updated to 0.992 (if I did it right by checking the 0.992 and unchecked the 0.991).

I then followed the guide on the first page on this thread to get asio out.

When I first played a song, I did indeed hear a difference to my foobar2000 0.9.5.5 ASIO, but I did NOT think it was an improvement however.

I managed to find the equilzer in Lilith, and saw that it was activated with preset Jass (IIRC). I turned the equilizer off and listened again.

This time I could not hear a difference between the two players. I might think I hear a difference, but then I listen again and find that both sound the same. I've listened by using the same song at the same place, listening about 3 seconds with one and then the same 3 seconds with the other.

Conclusion:
The conclusion of this short listening test, when the EQ of Lilith is turned off, they sound the same to me.